Thousands of £9.50 an hour Next workers were underpaid for five months, forcing them to turn to food banks after a payroll system glitch
- Next has underpaid thousands of employees struggling with the cost of living crisis
- The problem started after moving to a new Oracle payment system in February
- A worker was underpaid by more than £200, some employees used food banks
- Others take annual leave because they can’t afford to fill up their car to get to work
Fashion retailer Next has underpaid thousands of employees, forcing them to turn to food banks cost of living Crisis after a botched wage system change.
The company, which has around 43,000 employees, underpaid numerous employees after switching to a new Oracle payment system in February.
Some employees’ pension contributions were also deducted and not invested in the pension plan, causing anger among employees via internal messaging systems.
As a result, some workers have turned to food banks and are unable to fill up their cars with fuel – booking furloughs as they can’t come to work.
In another case, an employee was underpaid by more than £200 and was left irritated when head office staff and store managers enjoyed a party with live music, food and drink at the NEC in Birmingham last week.
High-street fashion retailer Next has underpaid thousands of employees struggling with the cost-of-living crisis after a botched payroll system change. file image
In a message sent via the retailer’s messaging system, they wrote: “This is now the second week that my payment has been wrong and I’ve only been working here for a month.
“I’ve been without my wages for two weeks and at a time like this when everything is getting more and more expensive, the last thing I need is not to get my money.”
“Most of us haven’t been paid since the system change,” said an insider The Sunday Times.
She said her partner works overtime to cover her living expenses.
Manufacturing workers are paid around £9.50 an hour, managers around £16.80.
The pay issues have also resulted in some employees being overpaid and then missing out on Universal Credit payments.
Last year Next reported pre-tax profit of £823m – the highest since the company was founded in 1982.
Shonnagh Taylor, Next’s head of retail sales, recently told employees the company receives up to 113 calls a day from employees about pay issues, the newspaper reported.
Some workers have turned to food banks and are unable to fill up their cars with fuel – booking furloughs as they can’t come to work. file image
This is understood to have now dropped to around 50 a day.
A spokesman for the high street chain told the newspaper that they were looking into the salary issues as a matter of urgency.
“This is one of the few instances where Next has outsourced critical software, and we’ve learned some important lessons about integrating our internal applications with third-party platforms,” they said.
“We are aware of the issues these billing errors have caused some of our colleagues. We sincerely apologize to all those affected.’
They added that employees will not be affected by problems with pension contributions.
Next and Oracle have been contacted for further comments.
